


Tell Me

by ariel2me



Series: Fathers [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-20
Updated: 2017-03-03
Packaged: 2018-01-25 20:33:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1661552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariel2me/pseuds/ariel2me
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fathers, daughters, and the words that went unsaid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Hoster Tully & Catelyn Tully**

You are your mother’s daughter. Lysa has my stubbornness and my insistence on having my way in most things. Edmure has my pride and my temper. But you, Cat, you have your mother’s calmness, her serene way of taking in the chaos of the world and building a nest of tranquility in it, despite that chaos, despite all the uncertainties.

Perhaps that is why you have always been my favorite. You would disapprove, of course, had you known, just like your mother would have disapproved, had she lived. A father (or a mother, for that matter) is not supposed to have favorites. But I do. Oh how I do!

Brandon Stark was a great match from a great House. I wanted that for you. I wanted great things for you, Cat. It was not all for the greater glory of House Tully and Hoster Tully, despite what your uncle may wish to believe.

Brandon made you laugh. My serious, solemn daughter, weighed down by duty and responsibility beyond her years, laughing, smiling, and blushing just like any other shy maiden.

I never asked you what you wanted. You never wanted that horrid, ungrateful Baelish boy, did you? You were better than that, I always knew you were. My daughters should know their own worth. I tried to teach Lysa that, but it was too late by then.

Tell me that he has made you happy, Cat. Brandon’s solemn younger brother, as weighed down by duty and responsibility as you are. Tell me that Ned Stark has made you happy, child.

 

**Ned Stark & Sansa Stark**

The bells rang long and loud at Winterfell the day you were born. The first of our children to be born in Winterfell, the first to be born in times of peace. I was with your mother when her birth-pains started, as I had not been when she gave birth to Robb at Riverrun amidst war and bloodshed.  

I wept when your mother handed you to me, this tiny, squalling infant whose head was no bigger than my palm. You mother thought those were tears of joy I was shedding, and she drew us both into her warm and soothing embrace.

But they were tears of fear I shed, in truth. Fear of what I had the power to do to you, fear about all the things I might do to hurt you, this daughter of mine.

“You can’t ever understand, Ned. You’re his son, not his daughter.” Those were my sister’s words as she lay dying, as she tried in vain to make me understand how she could run, how she could turn her back on her father and her brothers, how she could have turned her back on her own life and everything she knew.

Unlike my sister, you did not cry or utter a word of protest when I told you about your betrothal.

I am not my father. I am not forcing you to wed a man (a boy, really, for that is what he still is at the moment) you absolutely loath to wed. You were delighted, in fact, full of words of praise for your intended, full of beautiful dreams and sweet imaginings of your glorious and happy future.

I am not my father. But perhaps I am worse. I took advantage of your sweet, gentle and trusting nature, encouraged it, nurtured it, and in the end, left you defenseless.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Rickard Stark & Lyanna Stark**

I let you run wild, they say. _That poor, motherless Stark girl. Her father lets her run wild._

What nonsense they speak, these chattering harpies, these creatures of court. There is no 'running wild' about expecting you to know how to handle a horse as deftly as your brothers, for one. You are a daughter of the north after all, not a fragile, delicate southron lady expecting always to be carried with pomp and grandeur on a litter or a wheelhouse. When your brother's betrothed finally comes north from Riverrun, she will have to learn -

I can hear you laughing, Lya. I can hear your gentle but firm chiding. _They are not all the same, Father, these southron ladies, just like northern ladies are not all the same. We are not coins made to order, each minted no different than others of the same value._

 _Oh? And how are you different, pray tell me?_ I asked you, in jest.

 _I want to travel, to roam the world from one end to another, like my grandsire the Wandering Wolf_ , you replied, equally in jest, I believed.

A sword, Lya? Surely you know better, child. And certainly not a sword in lieu of marriage. A knight errant? A fool's errand is more like it.

_It is cruel, Father. It is cruel to allow me little glimpses of the whole wide world, only to shut the door so decisively._

Was that what he promised you, Lya, with his silver tongue and his silver harp? Did he promise you more than just a glimpse of the whole wide world?

Tell me he forced your hand, Lya.

Or tell me he took the hand you offered willingly.

Tell me he lied to you, Lya, lied to you and made a mockery of his words and his promises.

Or tell me he kept every single one of them.

Tell me something, _anything_.

Or tell me nothing, if you wish, my just punishment for hearing but never really listening.

Only ...

Tell me you are _alive_ , Lya.

Tell me I will not have to bury a child. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Doran Martell & Arianne Martell**

_Tell me it will not hurt, Father_ , you said, when you were four, when you fell and scraped your knees and your elbows, when you were waiting for the maester to tend to your wound. _Tell me the medicine will not hurt, Father,_ you pleaded.

 _It will sting,_ I told you, not daring to lie, afraid of breaking your faith and your trust in your father's words this early in life. _It will sting,_ I told you, _but only for a little while, and I will hold your hand and I will hold you close to me the whole time, until it stops hurting._

 _Tell me you will never abandon me, Father,_ you said, when you were eight, when your sleep night after night was haunted by the ghost of the girl hiding under her father's bed, the girl desperately praying and waiting for the father who would never come to save her from the monster. _Tell me you will never abandon me the way Cousin Rhaenys and Cousin Aegon were abandoned by their father._

 _I will never abandon you_ , I promised, holding you tightly in my arms until you slept the sleep of the peaceful, of the girl who was convinced of her place in the world, of her place in her father's heart.

 _Tell me the content of this letter is a lie, a great big lie, a monstrosity of a lie, Father,_ you never said out loud to me, when you were four-and-ten, when you found my letter to Quentyn, the letter that changed not only how you thought and felt about your father, but also how you thought and felt about yourself. _Tell me I still have your love, Father. Tell me I have not lost it._

 _You will always have my love,_ I would have told you, had I known the true cause of your anguish, of your sleepless nights, of the tears you tried so hard to hide from me. But fool that I was, I attributed it all to your distress regarding your father's and mother's disintegrating marriage.

 _Tell me, Father, when did you decide to disinherit me? Tell me, Father, when did you begin to hate me?_ you asked, when you were four-and-twenty, when you have had enough of my secrets and my silences.

 _I never hated you, Arianne,_ I told you.

 _I never stopped loving you, Arianne,_ I replied, to the question you were no longer asking. 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Aegon V Targaryen & Rhaelle Targaryen**

_Tell me a story, Father,_ you said. _Tell me a story about the time you were Ser Dunk's squire._

 _Tell me a story, Lord Lyonel,_ I wondered, if you ever asked. _Tell me a story about the time you fought to prove Ser Dunk's innocence in a trial of seven._

 _It will be a grand adventure, Father,_ you told me, the little girl about to leave home and family for the first time. _It will be a grand adventure, like when you became Ser Dunk's squire and traveled across the realm together._

 _It will not be a grand adventure, my sweet girl. He will not treat you like Ser Dunk treated me, this man you will be serving as cupbearer, this lord who demands you as payment for your brother's debt, for your father's debt,_ I was about to tell you, to warn you, to prepare you, until your mother's sharp look and clenched teeth silenced my tongue.

 _She knows,_ your mother told me, after you were gone. _She is not a fool, our daughter. She knows it will not be like you and Ser Duncan. She only said that for her father's sake. To comfort her father._

 _But if I were him,_ your mother continued, _if I were Lyonel Baratheon, I would treat Rhaelle like my own daughter. I would love her like she is my own daughter, and endeavor to make her love me like I am her own father. I would endeavor to make her forget her own father. For that would be the most satisfying revenge against the family who dishonored my daughter - stealing their own daughter's love and affection away from them. That is what I would do,_ your mother said, _if I were Lyonel Baratheon._

Tell me your mother is right, Rhaelle. Tell me you have forgotten me. Tell me you have forgotten your own father, in favor of a better father, so I would know that by sending you to Storm's End, I have not sentenced you and abandoned you to a life full of loveless misery, mistreatment and sorrow. 


End file.
